Dream of You (11 page)

"We aren't really together, Mom. We're just
sniffing around each other. But we have a date tonight."

"If he was hurt before in reality like he was
in your story, then of course he's going to be cautious. You just
be yourself, and you'll win him over." Her mother picked up her
knitting and began working at it again.

Lola watched, admiring her manual dexterity
and wondering why that wasn't affected when her mental dexterity
had been. "Mom, I've been meaning to ask what you're working on. Is
it a scarf?"

Her mom didn't look up looked up, as if she
didn't hear the question.

"Mom?" She leaned in and touched her arm.

Sally startled, flinching back. The fear in
her eyes clouded into a glazed distance, unseeing even though her
hands still moved the needles.

Her mom was gone again.

Lola's heart sank, but she ruthlessly pushed
back the tears. She kissed her mom's forehead and slowly put her
things away. When she felt ready, she pasted a smile on her face
and stood up. "I'll go now, Mom, but I'll be back Sunday to see
you."

There was no reply.

Lola let herself out of the room, telling
herself she wouldn't be disappointed or sad, because the few
moments her mother recognized her were a gift. Lifting her head,
she strode out and headed home. The best thing she could do for her
mom was to have a good time tonight with Sam at his benefit.

She went home. A bath would help shake off
the funk.

Because she couldn't help herself, before she
went in for her bath, she checked her email. There was the usual
spam, some fan mail, an email from Kevin (which she deleted), and
one from Madison Taylor.

Curious didn't even begin to describe how she
felt, but then she saw the subject line and stalled.
Your date
with my dad
. Maybe she shouldn't open it.

Who was she kidding? Of course she was going
to read it. She clicked on the email.

----------------------

To: Lola Carmichael

From: Madison Taylor

Subject: Your date with my dad.

Hi Lola! Remember me? It's Madison, Sam's
daughter.

You and my dad are going on a date tonight,
and I just wanted to make sure you wore something really pretty,
like for prom. I know I should have emailed you sooner, but my mom
grounded me from the Internet this week because I was facebooking
instead of doing the dishes. Like dishes can't wait.

I hope you have something to wear.

Sincerely,

Madison

----------------------

Lola couldn't help grinning as she reread the
email. Apparently, Sam hadn't been kidding when he'd said Madison
was harassing him to ask her out. Having the girl's blessing to
date her dad had to be a good thing, right?

Something pretty... She'd had a black dress
in mind, but now she had the urge to spice things up, and she knew
just the dress.

She took a bath, luxuriating in the hot water
until everything but the anticipation for the evening melted away.
She took care to do her hair properly, blowing it out and then
curling it with a brush until it was bouncy and shiny. She put on
the raciest black underwear she had, wishing she'd stopped by
Olivia's for something truly special. Oh well—next time. And then
she slipped on her sassy red dress, completing the outfit with
silver strappy shoes and chunky silver earrings she'd bought from a
modern art store in New York.

She looked in the mirror and smiled. Sam was
going to swallow his tongue.

Sam waited for Lola to answer her door.
Nervous. He felt like he was a teenager again, picking up a girl he
liked a lot for a first date. He stuck his hands in his pockets and
hoped she wouldn't make him wait too long.

She opened the door. "You're amazingly
punctual."

"And you're
smokin'
." The red dress
wrapped around her neck, clingy on top, and bared a mile of creamy
legs.

She ran her hands down the skirt. "Madison
told me to dress like prom, but for my prom I wore a hoop dress
with lace up to my neck."

He looked at her lovely neck and gave a
silent prayer in thanks for it being exposed. "You're missing one
thing."

"What?"

He leaned and placed a kiss on her
collarbone.

He heard her soft sigh and smiled. Tonight
was going to be so much better than he'd imagined. He held out his
hand. "Ready to go?"

"Let's do it." She put her hand in his.

He kept her hand the whole way. She told him
that she decided to start over on the book she had due, but that
her new plot was so much better it was practically writing itself.
He told her about the guests he had on his show that week,
particularly about the sex therapist on Wednesday night who wanted
to teach him tantric breathing.

As they strolled into City Hall, where the
benefit was, he demonstrated the enthusiastic wheezing the
therapist had taught him.

Lola laughed. "If you did that during sex,
I'd die."

"That's not what's supposed to happen," he
said, guiding her toward the bar set up on one side. "She assured
me it'd augment my sexual interaction and make orgasms more
satisfactory."

"Were your orgasms not satisfactory?"

He stopped and pulled her close. "With you,
satisfactory doesn't figure on the chart. Amazing is the lowest
grade."

"Don't stop." She grinned. "Tell me
more."

"I'd rather show you."

"Okay," she said softly.

He wanted to kiss her so badly, but this was
a work function. So he smiled at her. "Drink?"

"Please."

They walked to the bar. He ordered a gin and
tonic for her and a beer for himself. Holding their drinks, they
took a slow turn around the room, looking at the displays the
charity had set up.

"Touchdown!"

Sam turned to find the network heads coming
at him en masse, Jennifer bringing up the rear.

Great. He pasted a smile on his face. "Good
to see all of you," he lied.

"Great job you're doing in the eight o'clock
time slot." Owen Pickering, the president, nodded, dollar signs big
and bright in his eyes. "Ratings are skyrocketing, just like
Jennifer said they would."

"Jennifer's a smart lady." And he meant it,
even if she'd messed with his career. But if she hadn't, he
wouldn't have met Lola, so maybe being a DJ to the lovelorn wasn't
such a bad thing. Call him crazy, but he was enjoying it. He
wouldn't want to do it forever, but it was an interesting change of
perspective.

"Thanks, Sam." Suspicion laced the edges of
Jennifer's smile. Then she turned to Lola. "This is a surprise, Ms.
Carmichael."

"Please call me Lola."

Jennifer turned to the execs. "Lola
Carmichael is a bestselling author and Sam's first guest."

One of the other men cooed. "Then the show
was obviously good for
your
love life, eh, Touchdown?"

"Maybe we should market that," one of the
other men said.

"My private life is private," Sam declared
before they went too far down that road. "There will be no
marketing it."

"We'll see." Pickering clapped him on the
shoulder and walked away, his entourage trailing after him.

Except for Jennifer, who was looking at Lola
curiously.

He was no stranger to the cattiness of women.
He braced himself for the bitchy comment that'd mess things up for
him with Lola. He didn't want things with Lola to go bad. In fact,
he wanted just the opposite.

He liked her. A whole lot.

Jennifer was asking Lola about her current
project, which Lola was answering vaguely when some woman rushed up
to them. "Lola Carmichael!"

His date smiled warmly. "Jane, what a
surprise. It's so great to see you."

The woman air-kissed Lola's cheeks. "You'll
never guess who's here.
Kali Singh
. Remember, the columnist
for Cosmo? You
have
to come say hello. Can I borrow Lola for
a second? I'll bring her right back."

Before Sam could say anything, the woman
dragged his date away. Looking over her shoulder, Lola shot him an
apologetic smile. He nodded, letting her know it was fine—that she
should do what she needed to do.

He and Jennifer watched her go.

"I didn't think it was possible," Jennifer
said.

"What?" He sipped his beer.

"That you could actually care about a woman."
She shook her head. "I thought hell would freeze over before I saw
the day you looked at a woman like that."

"Like what?" he asked cautiously.

"Like you want to devour her, of course, but
also like you're ready to tear apart anyone who got too close to
her."

Did he look like that? "Does this mean I get
my old show back?"

"Of course not." Jennifer looked at him like
he was insane. "You've only known her a few days. Let's make sure
it's not a fluke. Good try though."

Lola looked up at him from across the room,
help
written in her eyes. "Excuse me," he murmured to
Jennifer, going to rescue to his date.

When he reached her, the two women she was
with were in the middle of a discussion about some sort of art. He
slipped an arm around Lola and said loudly, "I have to steal Lola
away. There's a matter of romantic importance and her opinion's
needed."

The two people barely glanced at him before
continuing.

"Thank you." Lola heaved a sigh and leaned
into him. "I thought my head was going to explode."

He held her body against his, liking how it
fit there. "What were they talking about?"

"Hair art."

"Like for supermodels?" he asked as he led
her from the main gallery up the large staircase.

"No. It's a type of art from the nineteenth
century, where they took the hair of dead loved ones and turned it
into paintings." She made a face. "My friend Gwen told me about
it."

"Creepy."

"No kidding. I'd have tried to pry myself
away, but my agent's been trying to hook me up with Kali Singh
forever. Being featured in her column would up sales." She looked
around. "Where are we going? There's not much going on up
here."

"Exactly." He guided her into a secluded
alcove hidden by a curtain and turned her into his arms.

"This is the romantic emergency?" she asked,
putting her arms around his neck.

"I'm dying," he whispered, kissing her lovely
neck.

She arched her head back. "Do you need mouth
to mouth?"

"Hell yeah." He took her lips, just like he'd
been thinking about all day.

They kissed, and kissed some more, until it
wasn't enough. He lifted his head and looked around. "Here," he
said, leading her to the windowsill. He perched on it and drew her
between his legs.

But soon that wasn't enough either—for either
one of them. Lola was the one who made the next gesture, undoing
his pants and pulling him out.

They both looked down at her hand holding it.
Then he reached into his pocket and handed her the condom he'd
brought, just in case.

She smiled like a siren as she sheathed him
with it and then climbed on. Straddling him, she sighed as she slid
all the way down. "We seem to get it on standing up a lot."

He untied the back of her dress, exposing a
lacy black bra. "Do you mind?"

"Do I seem like I mind?"

"It's a good leg workout." He lowered one
side of the bra and thumbed her nipple.

She hissed, arching into his touch. "That's
exactly what I think every time we do this."

"If you're able to think, I'm not doing this
right."

"You're doing okay, but you can always try
harder."

"Harder I can do," he murmured against her
neck, and he did just that.

Kristin asked Eve for a week of strategic
scheduling: to work later in the mornings rather than opening. She
wanted to give Rob a chance to miss her by not starting off his day
with her.

Eve had asked her what'd happen if he didn't
notice, but Kristin was confident he would. A man didn't kiss a
woman like Rob had and then forget her.

Monday, she resumed her normal schedule. She
toyed with the idea of looking especially nice for when she saw
him, but she didn't want him to have unreasonable expectations of
what he was getting.

Like clockwork, Rob came in for coffee and
pastries before work, Chanel trotting alongside him.

Kristin felt a tingle of excitement at the
way he smoldered at her as he stalked toward the counter. She
wanted to crawl across the top and meet him halfway for another one
of those explosive kisses.

But instead she tipped her head and gave him
a knowing smile to remind him how sassy her lips could be.
"Hi."

"Where have you been?"

She poured him coffee. "Did you miss me?"

He looked her over like he wanted to drizzle
chocolate on her and lick her clean. "I have a proposition for
you."

"The answer is yes."

A smile touched his lips. "You don't know
what it is."

"No, but I can hope."

"I have something I need help with. You're
the perfect person for it."

"Am I?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he said confidently. "Maybe we could
get together later today to discuss the details? Over dinner."

She loved the idea of a date. "That'd be
great."

"Remember where I live?" When she nodded, he
said, "Come over around seven."

"I'll be there."

He smoldered at her all the way out the door.
She waited till she couldn't see him to thrust a fist in the air.
"
Yes
."

It wasn't until later that she noticed they'd
both forgotten about his coffee and pastry. Oh well—she'd give him
something even more delicious and sweet later.